Not Myself
By Princess Alexandria
Princess_alex24@hotmail.com
Christy sat on her bed, reading by lamp light, while waiting for her visitor. Amazing what little things give life meaning. A few of her people had found another comic book store, and brought these gifts. She didn't have the heart to tell them she didn't read the Exiles, and took them as if they were a prize, knowing the team would feel proud. Funny how that works. That comic was, well, different. Alternate worlds and shifting characters, but the blue female was pretty. She had some of Mystique's playfulness.
The knock finally came and Christy went to answer it. Shelley stood nervously on her doorstep, dressed differently than earlier today. "Come in." Christy told her, but studied the new dress as Shelley came in. What was this about?
It took Shelley five minutes of idle chit chat to get to the main topic. "I'm a virgin." She whispered while looking out Christy's window to the asteroid in the sky. "I don't want to die a virgin."
Christy stared at Shelley silently and watched the young woman. She didn't know what to say about that. It was a tragedy that Shelley even had to think of this. "I'm sure there are a lot of people that would…" Christy struggled for the words. "Want to hold such a pretty girl." Shelley was attractive enough, not really beautiful, but pretty enough. "Is there anyone?" She was hesitant to ask.
Love advice wasn't really something she did. She talked about death, killing and guilt. Those were the things she counseled people about. Love, sex… no one ever went to her about those things. Christy suspected Tracey got those questions. Even with her trying to be more of herself around her people, she still wasn't someone that inspired girly chats. In all honesty she'd never been like that. It was one of the reasons she didn't go into counseling after starting in that direction in college. She now had a better knowledge of human sexuality and psychology than the average person, but she just didn't have the temperament for the job. If someone started whining at her she was more likely to tell them to do something about it or shut up.
"Yes." Shelley turned away from the window and looked at her. Something in Shelley's eyes told Christy she needed to have good control over her expression right now, because Shelley was going to say something she didn't want to hear. The girl's eyes held a note of pleading and a hint of desire. Oh, Shelley… please don't, Christy thought. "You." And then she did. Damn.
Christy was careful to not let her emotions show and hurt the girl. She didn't want Shelley to want her like that. Christy wasn't even remotely attracted to the girl. Mark had done more for her than Shelley did. In spite of the womanly curves, Christy thought of Shelley as the little girl that idolized her like a star. A child. Christy sighed and looked away from the nervous girl waiting for a response from her. Shelley would never be older than she was right now. "There has to be someone more suitable for you than me." She muttered to say something. The storm of emotions Shelley's confession brought up was staggering in it's intensity. Her regrets about not giving herself to Mark, her pain at not having someone to hold, and her guilt for considering it or for turning the girl away… it didn't matter which she did, she'd regret any action she took now.
"I've thought about it." Shelley sounded like she was trying to be brave and adult about all of this. "And I want it to be you."
Christy looked up to see Shelley waiting for her to speak. The girl was at least three shades paler than she'd been and looked scared. "Shelley." Christy shook her head from side to side, almost unaware of the action… she wanted to deny this conversation was going on. The pain in Shelley's face made the decision for her. It was a last request and it obviously meant something for Shelley. Christy wouldn't have wanted to die a virgin either. She could understand that. Just because she felt no passion didn't mean she couldn't make love to Shelley. It would have to be making love, just sex wouldn't do for Shelley's only time with a partner.
Shelley had never been with anyone else. She wouldn't be able to tell how much Christy was faking it. "Okay." Christy whispered and ignored the dread in her chest. She wished that she could hold a woman she loved in her arms, one that she actually felt passion for… but Emma wasn't real, and if she were Christy would never want to see her trapped in this world.
Shelley moved forward awkwardly and Christy pulled her into a hug and just held her for a while, getting used to the idea of holding anyone. Her mind was filled with the mechanics of what she'd do and how slowly she'd need to take it. It was like a task. It felt so impersonal to her, but she'd make sure that Shelley felt loved just once in her life. Shelley would never know it wasn't real. Of course she'd also give the girl plenty of opportunity to change her mind, but Christy wasn't going to hold her breath on that. Shelley looked pretty sure of what she wanted.
After holding Shelley in her arms for a while Christy leaned her head down and kissed the column of Shelley's neck lightly. She whispered into her ear. "Are you sure?" and was impressed with the way she was able to make her voice sound needy when she wasn't actually. When did she become such a good actress? Shelley's only response was to bare more of her neck in an invitation.
Shelley's breath caught in her throat when Christy nibbled on her ear gently and Christy could feel the tension in the girl's body. Shelley was starting to get into this. The nervousness was fading and Shelley's body was starting to show its need. Christy cradled Shelley with her body while they stood up and rubbed her cheek against the side of Shelley's head before moving to finally kiss Shelley on the lips. A slow gentle kiss that grew in intensity. Christy really didn't like being the top in sex, not like this, with a partner that had no idea what to do. It just added to the pressure to perform. Still she patiently taught Shelley how to kiss, while hurting inside at the idea that it was clear she was the first person to do that with the girl.
The whimper in Shelley's throat gave Christy the impression that it was alright to start to escalate things. She did.
********
Emma watched as Christy made tender love to the girl. Noticed the way Christy went slowly, but kept Shelley's needs foremost in her mind. Easily felt the lack of passion slowly start to simmer, but it was still so weak. Felt every guilty thought as Christy noticed the skinny girl's bones through her skin and blamed herself for not being able to feed her even better than she did. Every insecurity came to the surface in Christy's mind while she made love to Shelley, but Shelley never noticed the hesitant touches, or the woman's lack of true passion. Shelley looked to be lost in feelings she never thought she'd experience.
Christy's true panic didn't come until after Shelley's orgasm, the girl wanted to touch her.
********
Shelley's hand caressed Christy's breasts, and Christy's intake of breath was more about shock than arousal. Shelley grinned like she'd won something, mistaking it for the other. "Teach me how to make love to you." Shelley whispered, trying to be seductive. Christy's heart started to pound out of fear. She couldn't fake her body's lack of response to the girl as easily as she faked everything else. She was barely wet, barely ready. Even a virgin might know what that meant.
"You don't have to."
"I want to." Shelley's eyes held an uncomfortable amount of awe. Apparently she'd impressed the girl with her skill. If Shelley had time to have a good lover she'd find out that Christy wasn't really all that, but as it was Shelley was going to think Christy was amazing for the rest of her life.
"I'm not usually…" Christy struggled with a cover for the fact that she doubted Shelley could give her the type of pleasure Shelley wanted to. "I've never been very responsive… I get more out of giving." She lied. She'd rather make love to Shelley again than feel someone try to make love to her and feel nothing.
In the end she hadn't been able to talk Shelley out of it. With Shelley's head between her legs she stared up at the ceiling, feeling awkward and wishing she was anywhere but there. She could feel Shelley's touch, but it wasn't… The touch of death hit her from nearby and Christy did something she never had before. She let it in, desperately seeking the feeling that would make it look like she enjoyed what Shelley was doing.
"Yes…" Christy hissed as her back started to arch. Her mind cast out subconsciously for more. "Oh, God…" Christy's hand reached down to press Shelley more firmly to her. It wasn't enough, and Shelley's touch wasn't doing it.
********
Emma felt Christy's shields fall completely for a moment, just a moment, both in the memory and in reality. With that came a scream so loud it had to wake the neighbors. Christy came. Emma opened her eyes and stared at the arching body against hers and Christy writhed against her. "Emma… Oh God…"
Emma had the foresight to stop her connection the moment the shield came down, but seeing the pleasure it gave Christy part of her wished she hadn't. The shield fell back into place with a snap the second the orgasm stopped, and Christy fell limply back against her. Emma risked a light scan and felt the shame and embarrassment. Christy was starting to realize what happened.
Also even though the shield was back up, Emma had little difficulty getting past it. That was new. Christy made sure to not close Emma's doorway in spite of what she was going through.
"Scanning memories sometimes has… side effects." Emma spoke calmly while moving to pull Christy into her arms again. She could feel a few Xmen puzzling over what they'd heard, and felt Scott hesitantly coming closer to the door.
~Scott, I tapped into a memory, that's all. Right now we shouldn't be disturbed.~ Emma sent him before he had a chance to knock. The suspicion he felt angered her, but she ignored that for now and focused on Christy.
Emma looked into Christy's eyes and tried not to let her surprise show. They were glowing just a little in the slightly darkened room. "sometimes tapping into a memory like that will result in…" Christy's blush made it clear she understood what Emma was saying. Emma smirked at her. "We've all done it before. It's nothing to get embarrassed about." She teased, but the fact that it was her name being called out was new. Did Christy really call her name out when she was with Shelley, or was that just here?
Emma pushed her personal thoughts on what she felt about Christy's feelings for her out of her mind and focused on the new information. Christy had that shield before she came to this world and knew how to lower it on an instinctive level. It also made sense why she had a shield like that. It wasn't meant to keep telepaths out, that was just a side effect. That shield was how Christy controlled her own powers, which were just as unique as the shield itself was.
"I was a mutant even then, wasn't I?" Christy whispered. That was something Emma liked about Christy. No matter what was thrown at her she kept moving. Christy was the poster child for perseverance.
"I believe so." Emma spoke gently. "I can't sense death like you can. It's not something I've seen anyone else be able to do."
Christy was silent a little too long. At least her eyes were starting to fade back to normal. Emma wasn't sure what caused that glow, but it was probably important.
********
Christy was remembering all the awed looks she got when she used her powers in her world. She remembered the comments she'd over hear about her freaky ability. How come she never made the connection? Even then she realized it wasn't something everyone could do, but she never once thought about being a mutant because her world didn't have that.
Death. Her power was to sense death. Christy rolled away from Emma and stared up at the ceiling. She almost started to feel sorry for herself, because that was truly a morbid power, but there were worse powers out there. Even among the people in the mansion right now she could probably find worse ones.
"If I was already a mutant, how come I could get stabbed there?" Christy had come home injured from hunts a few times. This stroll through memory lane was showing her things she hadn't thought about before, but probably should have. If she hadn't been so distracted by meeting the Xmen maybe she would have.
"I was trying to discover that." Emma spoke and Christy rolled onto her side, finally feeling like she could face the woman now that they had something other than Christy's embarrassing reaction to talk about. "Maybe it's a secondary mutation, like my diamond form." Emma looked thoughtful, "Or perhaps your powers were slower to mature and you were heading in that direction from the beginning. I'd need to see more to know for sure."
Christy felt uncomfortable with letting Emma in again after what happened, but they'd already done so much. Her mind traveled over what she'd done with the last week of that life and most of the really embarrassing or shaming memories had already been looked over. In the end it was because she only had a weeks worth of memories left to share that she finally moved closer and hesitantly put her head back on Emma's shoulder so Emma could continue the scan. She'd never known that Emma needed physical contact for these deep scans, but it was probably something they showed and Christy never paid attention to.
********
In the morning Shelley had to get up earlier than Christy. She had to work on breakfast. Christy walked her to the door and when Shelley leaned in to kiss her before leaving Christy did it, even though she could see Debbie was just coming out of her apartment at the same time. "Have a good day." Christy smiled at the girl. She'd never had to deal with the awkward night after before, but she'd do the best she could.
"Hey Shelley." Debbie smiled at the girl. "I have to talk to Christy for a moment. I'll catch you in the kitchen in a few minutes." Shelley might not have caught the glare Debbie sent Christy's way, but Christy did.
Debbie followed Christy back into the room that smelled suspiciously like sex. Christy cringed at the scent she hadn't noticed before. It was like a neon sign telling anyone that enters exactly what happened here.
"She's just a girl." Debbie hissed at Christy.
Christy felt defensive, like she'd done something wrong. "So should I have waited until she turns eighteen… oh wait… she'll never be eighteen." Christy hissed back. That comment calmed them both. Debbie just stared at her, so Christy sighed. "I know… but I did the right thing." She told Debbie, while hoping that it was the truth. "She could have gone to someone else, someone that only cared about their own pleasure…" She really didn't like talking about this. "And I'm not going to talk about this. It has nothing to do with you. Shelley isn't your child."
Christy was grateful when Debbie dropped it. Old morals die hard, but this was the new world… the dead world, and it had no room for some of those outdated beliefs.
********
Church. Christy wasn't surprised how many of her people chose to walk the mile to the local church, even though they had no religious leader to speak there. Some of her people offered to baptize her in one religion or another. They didn't understand her when she refused, but they were nice about it.
They needed a ritual. Christy could understand that, but those that never had religion were left without. Those left here with her seemed lost to her. They needed some way to deal with the death. Something that didn't involve God so much, because some of those down there hated him right now.
"Tom." She yelled out when she saw him walk by. "Get as many of the others as you can, we need to talk."
Jake was the only missing member of the leading team. He'd gone to the church with the others. Christy outlined her plan, got feedback, and had the hunting team she'd originally started with at her back as they left the camp, minus their dead and one member. One last hunt, and it shouldn't take more than a few hours. They took another full hunting team with them and four carts rather than the normal one per team, because Christy knew they'd find what they were after.
"I like this idea." Tom spoke as he walked beside her. "It's kinda Egyptian."
"Yeah." Christy said distractedly as they walked up to their destination.
The hardware store had been raided like the grocery stores, but people had very specific needs then, and what Christy was after wasn't on the survival list. They grabbed metal buckets. They took wood. They loaded up carts with pulleys and rope. They grabbed pipes and hoses. They also took what they'd came here for. They searched the back room for more, raided the displays. When they were done three carts were full and the fourth was halfway full. She had the other team return those, and gave them the instructions of what she wanted done with the take.
Her team moved on to raid a beauty supply shop, a hair stylist shop, and a manicure place. Tracey smiled at her as they loaded up the nail polish, and other pampering items. The Egyptians had people to prepare the dead for burial, but Christy decided that having the living prepare themselves would be their ritual.
Jake was helping the team Christy had sent home when Christy and the others came back with the last cart. The pulleys were set up to run from what would be a fire pit to three different locations on the main building. Christy went up the stairs to the first pulley destination and noticed two apartments opened. The bathtubs sat in the middle of the living rooms, with piles of wood next to them. "I can rig it up so that we can drain them off the balcony." An older man told her. "I used to be a plumber." He smiled at Christy like she'd given him a gift letting him help with this. She hadn't even known that had been his job before. He was a hunter now, and that was all she thought about. What people were now.
They didn't have hot running water, but the fire would heat it up and then they could pour it into the tubs. Christy stood on the balcony and stared down at Jake testing the first pulley line with a few buckets of cold water for now. By the end of the day Christy found out she had two hair stylists in her tribe as well. She also had several people volunteering to help make this work, because they'd need helpers to fill the tubs and make sure supplies didn't run out. People would get to bath as long as they wanted, and if the water got cold someone would have to refill it.
By dinnertime they were ready. No one had seen the Raiders out in a week. They were probably in the middle of their own ceremonies, so Christy risked stoking a large fire to start the process. Her tribe was smaller now, but it would still take time to give everyone a turn, and she didn't want to run out of time before the end.
Christy started out by helping to heat the water in the buckets. Once it was hot enough she hooked it up to the pulleys. In this she was their servant. It was her gift to them. She spent that night running into a first floor apartment and filling buckets up with water. She spent the last Monday of her life carrying them to the fire until her muscles ached. The rest of the lead hunters helped her with the manual labor. It was symbolic to Christy that the leaders not be the first to enjoy this ritual.
Shelley smiled shyly at Christy several times while helping to move the heated buckets from the pulleys to the bathtubs. It earned Christy several speculative looks from her team, but she ignored them.
They ran the tubs for a few hours, but then had to stop because of lack of daylight and a need to sleep.
The next day it took a long time for others to talk her into taking her turn. She'd wanted to wait until everyone else had taken theirs, but it seemed a few people thought she was being ridiculous. She couldn't possibly heat everyone's water for them. It would exhaust her too much and there were a lot of people willing to help.
She enjoyed hot water after so many months living with nothing but cold showers that she took as fast as she could so that the torture would end. After she was done she too got her hair cut. She looked normal, like someone she used to be. Clean, hair cut, nails filed and neat. She stared into the mirror at Christy Taylor, teacher, and could honestly say she hadn't expected to see her again. She was harder than she used to be, and as Mark had called her, the Angel of Death still sat in her eyes with that knowledge of life and death she wished she never got. She glanced out at the asteroid that would hit tomorrow and decided she wasn't going to sleep tonight.
She spent the night being a bard to distract her people. She told stories for hours, with short breaks so that her voice didn't burn out. She retold old t.v. shows. She retold comic book stories. She even did a few ancient Greek stories she remembered from college. She didn't have Mark to trade off with like they used to so she had to keep it up herself, because no one else could keep a story straight, or speak like Mark did and make you relive what he was telling you. Telling a story was a skill, and not everyone had it.
In the morning they were going to leave their home, at least some of them. They all had places they wanted to be when it ended and Christy was going to the water. She'd rather die on the shore than be surrounded by buildings.
She wasn't sure when the thing would hit, so she was going to get there early.
********
Emma had a suspicion at this point and she followed Christy's memory to the water and the wait for death while working to shield herself from the emotions of the memory. She pulled out to the point that she barely felt it but was still aware of what was happening. She also helped to anchor Christy's shield up so that it wouldn't fall at the wrong time again. It was difficult to do because it was so different from the shields that Emma was used to, but she'd spare Christy the embarrassment of having telepaths snoop into that moment. A few must have realized that Christy's shield went down once tonight, although too briefly for a scan to work, and someone might be waiting for another opportunity. Someone like Jean who didn't quite trust Emma with this job, or the Professor who thought he was always the best suited to do deep scans because he was more powerful. No this was Emma's turf. Christy chose to share herself with Emma like this, no one else.
********
Christy was silent as she watched the asteroid streak through the sky. No one else on the waterfront spoke either. They all stared. It seemed to move so fast now. It held a deadly beauty. This was what Christy had fought so hard to live long enough to see. Well now she had. It didn't feel quite real that this was it. The end. She sent out a mental note of love to those she'd cared about in life. Her hand gripped the cards she'd taken out of her pocket to look at while waiting. She knew every card by heart now, but having them was a comfort. Like a child with a security blanket, but she felt no shame about needing her heroes with her now.
When it went out of sight on its way for a part of earth in the distance Christy continued to stare at the last place she'd seen it. "Goodbye." She whispered towards the others, but they were a little further from her because she'd walked away to give herself distance. Space for her shock to sit around her. She felt it, the death on a scale she'd never felt before and she opened to it. Accepted it. She could feel it coming closer, getting stronger. The wind was like a wall and…
There was a shaking…
Wait, this didn't happen… Christy thought as she watched it happen. I left before it hit us, she repeated in her mind and felt Emma's hand rest on her shoulder…
The power of the blast ripped through the tribe with her. Christy saw their bodies tossed into the air, felt her own body being ripped apart by the force, and then… she still stood there. How? Death still fed her and the glow of skin, skin doesn't glow… What's happening?
Christy screamed… and the echo of that could be heard over the din of death… the portal opened pulling her inside. She tumbled confused, her glowing tunnel to heaven was warped. Something was wrong…
She flew through the air and slammed into something. She took a deep breath and stared at the glowing tunnel. Was this heaven? She stared in horror at the thing that brought her here.
The movement she noticed out of the corner of her eye made her turn and her eyes widened. It was her, but soft… The other Christy stared down at her and Christy felt the alien feeling of someone else's shock. She cringed and when that Christy leaned down to get closer Christy wanted her to go away. She was about to open her mouth and tell the double to leave her alone when the tunnel attacked. Christy stared as the fear hit her and the other woman was dragged into that tunnel from hell. She felt the gasping the lack of air… and finally the death, before she moved from where she sat frozen on the ground, and the tunnel snapped shut with a soft whoosh of air.